- 12 Mar, 2021
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russian politics and wiarda theoretical frameworks
POSC120 Lecture Notes (09.30.10)
Russia
Announcements
• Review Seminar
– MPH (Mudd Hall) 106
– Tuesday, Oct. 5 @7pm
• Midterm Review Sheet
Brief History of Russia
• Keben roots
– 1230s, Mongol invasion, sweeping much of Eurasia
– non-Russian rule
– the Mongol invasion was the basis for Russian hypocrisy and authoritarianism:
direct centralization
• 17th Century
– Russians reestablish themselves through the Czar Royal Family
• Modernization with Peter the Great
• 1861, End of Feudalism
– gradual process
– end of serfdom
– Alexander the Great: the great liberator/reformer –> assassinated by a group of
terrorists advocating for universal reform, freedom from censorship, etc.
– during this time, a modern technological warfare occurred…Ottoman Empire
– internal reshuffling, nothing too drastic
• 1904-1905
– war between Russia and Japan –> Russia lost, first time an Asian state
defeated a European state
– placed pressure among Russian ruling class
– Russia realized it needed more industrial reforms after the defeat
• World War I
– created huge economic strain and political hardship
– Czar established system of a Duma, essentially a Parliament
• February Revolution
– general revolution against the status quo
– Feb. 1917 –> occurred on International Women’s Day –> women were exiled,
so they started demanding more equality
– Nicolaus II establishment of provisional government
– the leftist and radical-ist viewed this as a bourgeois government
– power vacuum created
• Russian Civil War
– Menchavics v. Bolsheviks
– both were leftists but Bolsheviks were less popular
– led to establishment of the US Czar POSC120 Lecture Notes (09.30.10)
Russia
Various General Secretariats Under the Soviet Union
• Lenin
– instituted two different phases of governing: war communism –> extreme
centralization, all facets of the state were centralized, top-down structure–>
means of reestablishing the Soviet Union
– also signed a treaty at the same with with Germany
– War communism led to New Economic Policy (NEP): pre-communist ideals of
private ownership –> private farms, small stores, etc. were allowed to establish
their own business
– Lenin argued that we needed to establish a mini-Burgeoise stage
– Lenin never had a formal position of power, he was just “they guy,” and many
people liked him and his ideologies
• Stalin
– Lenin didn’t want Stalin to succeed him, calling him brute and unfit for ruling
– came to power anyway after Lenin died, had a more official status of power
than Lenin
– responsible for everyone’s political position, so everyone who had a position
was indebted to him
– Stalin knew he can control who was coming in and out of the party, he placed
weak people in high power because he knew he could control them
– ended the NEP
– Stalin was very popular; he was a maniac; did a good job in killing anyone who
would be a rival his power
• Five Year Plan (Instituted by Stalin)
– plan for mass industrialization in less than half a decade
– collectivization, prolitarization for the peasantry –> expanding working class,
top-down engineering of the economy, etc.
– emphasis is similar to Germany’s top-down economy
– Soviet Union has to be industrialized, top-down revolution
• Khrushchev
– one of few people that Stalin trusted
– established his own personality cult
– slight reformer, liberalized policies
– he actually denounced Stalin, de-Stalinization
– Cuban Missile Crisis
• Brezhnev
– ended some reforms
– considered a bad leader
– instigated an era of stagnation –> lasting –> great economic stagnation,
massive amounts of inflation
– instituted a more confrontational policy than Khrushche